The battle for the high street

Retail Gentrification, Class and Disgust

Datos Bibliográficos

ID3978101
AutoresPanos Bourlessas (0000-0003-1679-192X, Independent researcher, autor de correspondencia)
Año2019
Volumen20
Número3
Páginas427-428
Fecha de publicación2019-03-24
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaSocial & Cultural Geography (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1464-9365 • E-ISSN: 1470-1197
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14649365.2019.1545287
OpenAlexW2900197896
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas6

Drawing our attention to understudied retail gentrification, Battle for the High Street provides a critical, class-cantered account of the policies that aim at regenerating the allegedly ‘dying’ high streets of British towns. Analysing discourses and practices encapsulated by the 2011 Portas Review of high streets, the author contends that the urge to regenerate the British main shopping streets is driven not by a need to replace vacant retail space or less profitable activities such as betting shops and fast food places, as alleged, but follows, instead, certain class interests, moralities and tastes. Specifically, high street regeneration is driven by a middle-class desire for distinction from the ‘abject’ working classes through consumption and the settings it takes place in. The result of such transforming ‘classed geographies of consumption’ (p.39) is retail gentrification, which serves the interests of the middle classes at the expense of the working classes, who experience a radical change in the facilities, prices and aesthetics of the high streets that traditionally catered to them. After all, the battle for the high street is a battle between classes

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Battle · Class (philosophy · Disgust · Economic growth · Economics · Gentrification · Sociology · Computer Science · Consumer Retail Behavior Studies · History · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy · Organic Food and Agriculture · Psychology · Social Psychology · Artificial Intelligence